Skip to page content

Legal Case and Court Management

Report
Evaluation of the California County Resentencing Pilot Program: Year 2 Findings
The California County Resentencing Pilot Program was established to support and evaluate a collaborative approach to prosecutorial discretion in resentencing eligible incarcerated individuals. The authors document results from year 2 of the program.
Sep 27, 2023
Blog
Teacher Pay, the Costs of Insomnia, Wildfire Prevention: RAND Weekly Recap
This weekly recap focuses on teachers' dissatisfaction with their pay and work hours, the staggering costs of insomnia, connections between wildfires and food insecurity., and more.
Sep 15, 2023
Report
Identifying Research Needs to Support Fair and Equitable Public Defense in the United States
The systems that provide counsel for indigent defendants vary considerably across states, localities, and judicial jurisdictions. Researchers identified information gaps or research priorities that, if addressed, could advance knowledge around effective public defense strategies.
Aug 30, 2023
Report
National Public Defense Workload Study
When public defenders have excessive workloads, they are forced to prioritize some cases over others. This inevitably causes harm. How might caseload limits help these lawyers better serve their clients—and help the justice system better serve all those who rely on it?
Jul 27, 2023
Research Brief
The Impact of Defense Counsel at Bail Hearings
Roughly half of U.S. counties do not provide defense counsel at bail hearings. An experiment shows that providing counsel can decrease the use of monetary bail and pretrial detention. But having a public defender at the bail hearing did result in a short-term increase in rearrests on theft charges.
Jun 30, 2023
Research Brief
Diversion Instead of Courts: Improving Outcomes for People Arrested for Low-Level Crimes
The Manhattan District Attorney's Office invested $7.76 million in Project Reset, a program to divert adults arrested for low-level crimes into community-based support programs and out of the court system. Among the key findings were improved arrest outcomes for participants and no increase in rearrests.
May 16, 2023
Report
A Process and Outcome Evaluation of Project Reset
In this report, RAND researchers share results of a process and outcome evaluation of Project Reset, a program that diverts adults arrested for low-level crimes into community-based support programs and out of the court system.
May 16, 2023
Blog
Reflecting on the Pandemic, RAND Turns 75, Labor Trafficking: RAND Weekly Recap
This weekly recap focuses on lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic, 75 years of influential RAND research, reducing labor trafficking in the United States, and more.
May 12, 2023
Journal Article
The Impact of Defense Counsel at Bail Hearings
Roughly half of U.S. counties do not provide defense counsel at bail hearings, and few studies have documented the potential impacts of legal representation at this stage.
May 11, 2023
News Release
Providing Legal Counsel at Initial Bail Hearings Reduces Use of Cash Bail, Lowers Incarceration
Providing defendants with legal counsel during their initial bail hearing decreases use of monetary bail and pretrial detention, without increasing the likelihood that defendants fail to appear at the subsequent preliminary hearing.
May 5, 2023
Testimony
Evaluation of the California County Resentencing Pilot Program
The California County Resentencing Pilot Program was established in 2021 and will run through September 1, 2024. In the program's first year, what were some of the implementation challenges participants faced? And what are some early results from the nine pilot counties' case reviews?
Mar 17, 2023
Report
Rethinking Case Management and the Process of Civil Justice Reform: Summary and Papers Presented at a UCLA-RAND Center for Law and Public Policy Conference
This publication summarizes the discussions and presents four pieces of scholarship presented during the UCLA-RAND Center for Law and Public Policy-sponsored "Rethinking Civil Case Management" conference.
Mar 15, 2023
Report
Evaluation of the California County Resentencing Pilot Program: Year 1 Findings
This evaluation of the California County Resentencing Pilot Program seeks to determine how the program is implemented in nine pilot counties and what the characteristics are of a possible candidate for resentencing.
Oct 3, 2022
Commentary
Justice Must Go On: The Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Military Court Operations
This Perspective provides a preliminary examination of how the coronavirus 2019 pandemic affected caseloads in the military justice system and how the system adapted its operations. It also offers several recommendations for possible future actions.
Sep 6, 2022
Tool
Empowerment-Based Domestic Violence Programming Within a Family Court Setting: An Implementation Guide
This guide supports the implementation of an empowerment-based domestic violence program within a family court setting. It was developed to share the best practices learned during an evaluation of the Safe Horizon Family Court organization.
Jan 6, 2022
Infographic
Empowering Domestic Violence Survivors Within the Family Courts
This infographic accompanies a tool that supports the implementation of an empowerment-based domestic violence program within a family court setting.
Jan 6, 2022
Research Brief
Black Motorists Face More-Serious Charges for Excessive Speeding Than White Motorists Do
In many states, motorists accused of excessive speeding can face either a criminal misdemeanor or a traffic infraction. Data on speeding violations in Virginia show large racial disparities in who is convicted of a misdemeanor.
Oct 4, 2021
Report
Racial Disparities in Misdemeanor Speeding Convictions
In this report, researchers use data on speeding violations in Virginia to examine whether there are racial disparities in who benefits from the discretion of law enforcement and the courts to discount or downgrade misdemeanor violations.
Oct 4, 2021
Report
COVID-19 and the Courts: Lessons from the Pandemic
The U.S. civil justice system was forced to change in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic. Panelists in this virtual conference addressed the effects of COVID-19 on the civil justice system and how lessons learned can be applied going forward.
Jun 4, 2021
Report
Provisional Caseload Standards for the Indigent Defense of Adult Criminal and Juvenile Delinquency Cases in Utah: Report for the Utah Indigent Defense Commission
The Utah Indigent Defense Commission asked the RAND Corporation for assistance in determining maximum caseload standards for providers of indigent legal representation in Utah. The authors present data and analysis.
Apr 28, 2021

1
2
3
Next